When You Find Your Path
by EnglandBabe1997
Summary: John Gilbert has watched his daughter grow up from afar. Only now her life is starting to wander off track, straying into the dangers that he'd hoped to get her to avoid. And he doesn't like it. (Neither does Isobel.)


**I don't know where this came from, considering I never really liked John, but it came to me earlier and I thought I might as well write it and post it x Please read and review to tell me what you think x :)**

When Isobel tells him that she's pregnant the first thing that Jonathon Gilbert thinks is, oh damn he's really done it this time.

He doesn't know what he's supposed to do with this news, himself only just sixteen and Isobel not even that yet. It's too much, too much to handle, too much to process, so he does what he does best and leaves, as fast as he can.

After it has sunk in (and he still doesn't know what to do with it), he does a bunch of other stupid things, including sleeping with his brother's wife's sister (only this time he is _much_ more careful when it comes to protection). He drinks a bit and almost crashes his brother's car into a hedge, something Miranda had not been at all pleased about, particularly after his tryst with her sister was revealed at a family dinner.

When he finally goes back to Isobel she is five and a half months pregnant and slaps him across the face (he probably deserves it).

Most people don't actually know that Isobel is pregnant, her vanishing a little way out of town to stay with a far less disapproving uncle who probably doesn't notice that his fifteen year old niece is both pregnant nor in school.

Isobel turns sixteen about a month before the baby is due and whines the whole time about not being able to spend the day with her friends (who gossip far too much for her to risk it getting back to anyone else).

It's a Saturday morning when her contractions start, which is lucky for him because it means he's not in school. John manages to direct her to his brother's surgery, knowing already that Isobel has no plans to keep the baby. She will run as soon as she can.

And Grayson Gilbert, delivering his niece (though he doesn't know it), recognises the face of the scared young girl in front of him but doesn't connect her with the pretty little ex-girlfriend of his brother.

When the girl leaves, abandoning her baby, Grayson and Miranda decide to adopt her as their own. They have been trying for years now, and this just seems like a sign.

* * *

Life goes like that from then on - John is Uncle John, not dad, something which he can't help but be glad about. Elena is a lovely little girl, but he couldn't handle being a parent - he's a bad enough Uncle.

Still, he tries to be there for the important things, like walking and talking and all the other things babies do.

And one day Elena does something that reminds Grayson just a little too much of his brother as a child and the dots connect in his head.

_He_ doesn't know what he's supposed to do about this. Except continue as they have, and sneak in a little (or long) word with his brother some point _soon_.

John stays away after that.

It goes like that through the next few years - the Gilberts are finally blessed with a child of their own, not than anyone but they and John know that. Elena grows up looking more and more just like Isobel, something that John doesn't know how to confront.

She doesn't look like him, but she does look like his brother, which is strangely fitting considering he's her father now.

* * *

John misses all of her kindergarten performances and never reads her a bedtime story but he never forgets her birthday or the pile of videos he has stacked on one shelf that his brother has sent him (his favourite one is five year old Elena at a dance recital, looking like can fly).

Sometimes he talks to Isobel, he knows that she has moved on and that she is happy, and that's good because then at least one of them is.

In the meantime John has taken up the family business.

Vampire hunting.

When his father dies, it is he who has to carry on with that, not Grayson with a wife and two children at home (even if one of them is John's).

* * *

Years pass slowly, learning more of the tricks of the trade as he goes. He visits Mystics Falls at least three times a year and then once more at Christmas and watches his daughter grow up into a beautiful young woman who looks more like her mother (both of them) with each passing day.

She is a cheerleader, popular, pretty, smart. She is normal.

It is exactly the kind of life he has wanted for her, that kind of life that any child should have.

And the reason why she should stay out of his life or else he'll ruin that.

* * *

His brother dies in an accident, something other than the supernatural (which is rare for a Founding Family).

John presumes this is his chance to be a father to Elena at last.

He doesn't take it.

* * *

Isobel has become a vampire. He doesn't know what to think about _that_, which is a reoccurring thought when it comes to his ex-girlfriend.

She tells him everything she knows, or at least most of it, and tells him about Katherine, who really is the spitting image of their daughter, and about Elena being in danger.

In spite of everything that's happened, that's the one thing the both of them hate.

* * *

Going back to Mystic Falls is different this time, bitter. He supposes that's because this time he's going back knowing that his daughter is caught up in all the things he'd hoped to keep her out of. She knows that danger of the things that go bump in the night - she's _dating_ one - and somehow that makes it feel like it's not really worth it.

He's stayed away from her for seventeen years so that she can live a normal life and then she starts dating a vampire.

Well, karma has already proved she hates him.

The only thing to worry about now is Elena's safety. He doesn't care about the vampires, not even the one she professes to love. Isobel and he are agreed on one thing.

This is not the life they had planned for their daughter, veering dangerously off course.

And, even if they have to kill (which isn't hard for Isobel) and even if it kills _them_ (which is even less difficult for John), they will do anything to put her life back on track.


End file.
